Check Point adds web app and widget control

Soon businesses that run Check Point security tools will be able to understand how thousands of web applications and web 2.0 widgets are used, giving executives better control over what employees do with their computers at work.

Soon businesses that run Check Point security tools will be able to understand how thousands of web applications and web 2.0 widgets are used, giving executives better control over what employees do with their computers at work.

The company is developing a software blade that customers can buy to address use of social websites and web applications. Check Point has licensed extensive libraries from FaceTime that identify 4,500 web applications and more than 50,000 web 2.0 widgets.

With the blade, due out next year, businesses could see not only that employees use Facebook, but also whether they are participating in Facebook groups or playing games available through the site, for example. Or they could keep an eye on applications that do file transfers, Check Point says.

Business use of web 2.0 sites brings its own security concerns and can run afoul of regulations from governmental agencies and business consortiums.

Initially, Check Point plans to incorporate the libraries in a blade that is just a monitoring tool, but later it will incorporate them in a firewall to create an access control blade that can enforce restrictions on the use of applications and widgets. Later still, the company says it will incorporate the libraries into IPS and QoS blades.

Under Check Point's software blade architecture announced earlier this year, customers can buy individual security tools to create packages of custom security features. For instance, customers might buy firewall, intrusion detection system and antispam software blades and run them on a single hardware chassis. Before, Check Point sold monolithic multifunction unified threat management platforms that might include more functions than customers wanted.

The libraries support FaceTime's own Unified Security Gateway product.